Recent BC Supreme court rulings express the concern some judges have for the misuse of our Common Law to arrest citizens who are concerned about our natural environment and ecosystems without the right to a trial by their peers.
by Tom Prior
Southeast of Revelstoke BC, the northeast reach of Arrow Lake reservoir (Beaton) receives the glacial waters of the Incomappleaux River from the ice in Glacier National Park. In Nakusp and Kaslo, locals call this hidden valley the “Fish River.”
Flowing south off the steep Selkirk Mountain peaks, the early liquids of this river gorge down rockinto tight canyon torrents of mist and powerful waters. The Incomappleaux, like the Lardeau, Duncan, Westfall and Halfway rivers are part of a larger ecological system known as the interior wetbelt or inland rainforest. This area stretches along the west side of the Rockies, south from the Robson valley near Prince George to northeastern Washington.
The amount of precipitation received in some valleys, along with the misting caused by constricted river and creek systems, has created coastal-like flora and fauna. Cedar trees at the confluence of the Incomappleaux and Battle Creeks have been aged at 1800 years and measured at 40 feet in circumference. Recent cursory studies at Battle/ McDougle creek by UBC plant specialist Trevor Goward and Toby Spribille from the University of Gottingen in Germany have discovered a number of oceanic macrolichen, ferns and several new oceanic crustose species.
My interest in the Incomappleaux began in 1985: a friend logging in the area spoke about giant trees at the back end of the Fish River. Fifteen years later my interest had become concern for the ecological importance of preserving intact wilderness in BC’s interior wetbelt. Without real ecological planning that re-invents both industrial logging and industrial tourism, we will soon lose a number of threatened species such as Mountain Caribou, Grizzly, Wolverine, Bulltrout, owls and a number of other species.
In 1999 BC’s Ministry of Forestry (MoF) gave Pope & Talbot Logging of Nakusp road and clear-cutting permits to cut the last ancient cedar/hemlock stands of the Battle/ McDougle and Boyd. Myself and two friends, one a member of the Sinixt Nation, decided to go and film these giant trees. Our hope was to find indigenous artifacts and perhaps stop the clear-cuts. The Incomappleaux is believed to be part of the “Grease Trail” used as a trade route for thousands of years by indigenous peoples of North America.
We did not find any artifacts. However, after three days of hiking up the south side of Boyd Creek, we stopped to rest at a large Grizzly wallow at the base of three giant cedars. We were tired. We had hiked for three days to try to cross Battle Creek and continue north, up the Incomappleaux. Because of unusually high creek levels we had not found a place to cross safely.
A mouse scampered deliberately toward us, out onto a moss covered branch over the wallow. The mouse raucously chattered at us while spinning and chewing on a large seed. We laughed and considered the magic of the mouse as we continued down the Grizzly corridor.
The film we made in the summer of 2000 piqued the interest of several environmental groups and plant specialists from BC and Europe. They managed to convince MoF and Pope & Talbot to postpone clearcuts at Battle/McDougle Creek for further studies. Last summer we found out Pope & Talbot would clearcut in 2005 on Boyd Creek, an important old growth tributary of the upper Incommappleaux that has vital wildlife corridors into the Duncan/Lardeau Rivers and Trout Lake on the east side of this drainage. They would then bridge from the east side of the Incommappleaux and continue the 30 kilometers of clear-cut into the remaining old growth/ ancient forest at McDougle Creek and scoop up the last low elevation ancient interior cedar on the planet, leaving a small forest reserve at the confluence of Battle on the east side…Clearcutting and roading down thousand year old trees.
Myself and three other friends decided to see if we could help the Ministry of Forestry and Pope & Talbot understand the importance of these intact ancient stands of trees. In late August we set up a workshop on the Boyd Creek bridge.
Pope & Talbot was not willing to listen to our plans to create forest-related jobs that did not destroy wilderness integrity. They decided to play hardball. With a fancy lawyer flown up from Vancouver they proceeded to mis-use our justice system and quickly procured a court injunction/enforcement order. We obeyed the court order and sadly removed our workshop equipment. Contractors moved in road building equipment.
I lay in my sleeping bag. Under a sheet of plastic pounding with rain, I tossed and turned, thinking about that Mouse and a Grizzly sow with two cubs I had walked into up Boyd Creek two weeks before. I knew the Grizzlies would be poached or hunted from the soon-to-be new road. And the Mouse would lose the shade and comfort of thousand year old trees. It was a terrible feeling of futility and injustice to witness the continued destruction of ancient forests and the creatures dependent on this ecology. The next morning, more road building equipment and fallers headed up the existing road on the lower half of the Boyd, which had been clearcut in the late 1980s. We gathered our courage, sipped coffee, and made plans for an international boycott campaign. Not willing to give up.
Four hours later, the grader driver came down the Boyd creek road, stopped his machine and approached our camp fire with a wide grin. “Well…I guess those old trees don’t wanna be logged, eh!” We asked him what he was going on about. He explained to us that he and the fallers had just received a radio message to evacuate because a large rockslide had come down and seriously compromised the only bridge through the canyon at the lower end of the valley. From his understanding there would be no logging whatsoever, in the upper Incomappleaux, this winter. He appeared to enjoy telling us this bit of news. We danced.
Our goal is to dialogue with the people and families dependent on forest related jobs in the east and west Kootenays. We believe economic opportunities can be achieved that do not jeopardize the existence of Mountain Caribou and Grizzly or exacerbate global warming.
Pope & Talbot and contractors wait to sue for our homes to compensate them for eight days of profits they claim is owed from not clearcutting ancient forests.
We wait for the people of BC and Canada to wake up and smell the fouling air and understand the ramifications of a frustrated justice system. A number of recent BC Supreme court rulings express the concern some judges have for the misuse of our Common Law to arrest concerned citizens without the right to a trial by their peers.
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[From WS November/December 2005]